The art of sewing has included many forms of needles from complex needles used in sophisticated machines to simple bone needles.
All sewing needles, no matter how simple or complex, have a common feature, to wit: they must be threaded. Threading a needle can be a difficult task to perform by hand for anyone, but is especially difficult for an elderly person or a person whose manual dexterity or whose hand-eye co-ordination may be impaired.
For this reason, the art has included several proposals for self-threading needles, see for example, the needles disclosed in U.S. Pats. Nos. 3,531,030 and 4,385,575. While somewhat successful, these self-threading needles still have several drawbacks. For example, some of these known needles require the thread to be forced past a closed passage. This may, in some instances, tend to fray the thread, and may even weaken such thread. In some cases, it may even cause the thread to break. Another problem with the closed-passage type self-threading needle is that the degree of manual dexterity that is required may be higher than desirable.
Therefore, there is a need for a self-threading needle which can be easily used and which will not unduly expose the sewing thread to the possibility of becoming frayed, weakened or broken during the movement thereof into the eye of the needle.